


each one is a burning sun

by jeeno2



Series: TRoS Fix-Its [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Awkward First Times, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, Loss of Virginity, Redeemed Ben Solo, Sharing a Bed, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, TRoS Spoilers, That's Not How The Force Works, Virgin Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:48:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21879139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: Ben’s voice is clear and bright in a way voices never are in dreams. His voice is real, it is alive. It is his. He stands there, rooted to the spot, stunned, staring at her like he can’t believe she is real. Like he never wants to stop looking at her.She thinks she knows the feeling.(Or: Ben comes back to her.)
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: TRoS Fix-Its [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576171
Comments: 606
Kudos: 3359
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics, The Rise of Skywalker: Fix-It Fic Edition





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [walkingsaladshooter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingsaladshooter/gifts), [crossingwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/gifts), [Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Каждый из них как палящее солнце](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897835) by [Scofie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scofie/pseuds/Scofie)



> TROS SPOILERS MY DUDES. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN TROS, YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ FURTHER.
> 
> Ok. Look. The Rise of Skywalker was.... what it was. I've decided I'm going to make up my own ending because, much like Ron Swanson, I have a permit to do whatever I want.
> 
> This is a continuation of a short [twitter fic](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/status/1207501239145119749/) I posted earlier this week. This will basically be the happy smutty ending JJ denied us. If plotless happy smutty endings aren't your bag you may not be into this story. If they are, however, come join me!
> 
> Also, I'm gifting this to the three ladies I saw TRoS with last night because they are lovely and seeing this movie without them would have been a much harder, and worse, experience. ❤️

Rey settles into life on Tatooine more easily than she’d expected.

The climate is similar to Jakku’s, which helps. The twin suns make the landscape harsher here—both hotter during the day, and colder at night, than her home world—but with the credits and the extensive training she now has from her time spent with the Resistance and with Leia, Rey’s life here is more comfortable than her childhood home ever was.

After only a few weeks’ initial restlessness—when she startled at the slightest sound, thinking she was back with her friends; with  _ him— _ she falls into an easy sort of routine that marks her days.

Whereas before she rose at dawn to learn and fight and train, now, she rises at dawn to check the moisture vaporators—machines that, here, can mean the difference between life and death.

And every evening, when it’s cooler than it is at midday but the bone-chilling cold has not yet set in, she travels to the nearest settlement that passes for a town—bigger than Niima, but not by much—to trade for the supplies she will need the following day.

It’s a familiar kind life for her here, but a far easier one than what she had back on Jakku. And it’s quiet— _ very _ quiet—which helps keep the ghosts and her indescribable grief at bay.

Time passes, slowly and inexorably.

And it’s for the best, her being here.

(It’s what she tells herself, when the nightmares keep her from sleeping.)

* * *

A few weeks after Rey buries the twin lightsabers in the sand in front of Luke’s old home, the whispers in town begin.

She ignores them at first. The kind of scum who loiter around Mos Eisley are nothing new to her, and she knows instinctively, from the years she spent with no one to depend on for her survival but herself that the kind of gossip people like that spread is not to be trusted. 

But soon enough their whispers grow louder and more frequent. It isn’t long before they are impossible to ignore.

“Tall as a tree, and twice as big around,” she hears someone mutter during one of her daily visits to the water trader.

“Dark hair, dark eyes,” the trader whispers back. “Haunted. Something kinda...  _ off _ about him.”

“He mostly hides in the shadows. Never talks. Flinches when you look right at him—but there’s a power in him; you can tell.”

_ You’re not alone. _

_ Neither are you. _

Rey is imagining things. 

She was far too imaginative for her own good as a child, conjuring up a fake history for herself out of nothing but dust and childish dreams. But now she is grown, and far too old for childish things. She came to Tatooine to forget, not to remember. She  _ certainly _ did not come here to listen to half-drunk rumors, or think too much on ghosts, kisses, and severed bonds.

Rey gathers her water supplies with shaking hands as the men continue their hushed conversation, and she hurries out of the marketplace, her blood thundering in her ears.

* * *

More time passes. Days, weeks—Rey doesn’t keep track. It’s easier in the desert to not think too much about the passage of time, but rather to just let one moment, one hour, one day bleed into the next.

The whispers about the mysterious hermit continue. 

Rey tries not to listen, but she does anyway. She learns this tall, mysterious stranger dresses in the simple robes the locals favor.  _ (Ben wore dark clothing, a loose shirt and pants, when he fought the emperor. When he fought for her; saved her life _ ;  _ died _ .) The man who so fascinates the people here speaks to no one, and he lives alone in a hut on the edge of a town that few ever visit. ( _ She told Ben once that he would never be alone.) _

The moment Rey sees Ben Solo again she is convinced she is dreaming. He stands at the stall where she trades for water every evening, sifting through something on the counter she cannot see.

His back is to her, and he does not look up. But she would recognize this man—the slight hunch of his broad shoulders; his long, tousled hair; the curve of his spine; the surprising gracefulness of his large hands—even if one day her power of sight left her completely. 

This must be a dream. Ben appears to her in dreams sometimes—sometimes he kisses her; sometimes he touches her in places no one has ever touched her before, bringing throaty, pleasured cries forth from her lips—and while Rey has never dreamed of him doing something so mundane as standing in front of her in line for water on Tatooine, seeing him here, now…

She shakes her head.

This must be a dream.

But even as she tells herself this she can feel the bond between them flare to life. It vibrates and hums, thrumming through her bloodstream. She can feel the way he senses it too, in the way the hairs on the back of his neck start to stand on end at her nearness and in how his large, gentle hands clench themselves into fists on the counter in front of him.

Rey turns to go, panicking, her face so flushed she can feel the heat of it all the way to the roots of her hair. In her hurry to leave she stumbles over a dirty metal pot someone must have left abandoned in the road.

The noise of it startles the man at the counter. He turns, slowly, to face her.

Rey’s breath catches at the sight of him. 

Ben looks... tanned. Rested. And, somehow, indescribably at peace, in a way she knows he never was while he was still living.

His dark, fathomless eyes go wide as he drinks her in.

“Rey.”

Ben’s voice is clear and bright in a way voices never are in dreams. His voice is real, it is alive. It is  _ his.  _ He stands there, rooted to the spot, stunned, staring at her like he can’t believe she is real. Like he never wants to  _ stop _ looking at her.

She thinks she knows the feeling. 

Rey tries to swallow around the sudden lump in her throat, but her mouth has suddenly gone dry as the desert itself. She takes a tentative step towards him, afraid that if she moves too suddenly it’ll turn out to all be a dream after all and she’ll wake up, alone again, in her narrow bed.

“Ben?” His name is a broken sound on her tongue.

He nods—just once, a quick jerk of his head—and then Rey is crying, sobbing out all the tears and the grief she’s kept bottled up inside her ever since he disappeared in her arms. 

“How?” she whispers, coming even closer to him. “Ben,  _ how _ ?” She’s seen, felt, Leia’s and Luke’s presence, she’s heard Yoda and Anakin and so many other ghosts since killing the Emperor—but she has never once heard of a Force user coming back to flesh and blood  _ life _ like this after the finality of becoming one with the Force.

Ben shakes his head. His own eyes are dry but his voice is thick with emotion when he says: “I... don’t know.” He looks down at his feet. “When I woke up, I was alone. I was scared. I didn’t know where I was, but...”

He gazes up at her, the look on his face full of the same longing adulation she saw the moment before she kissed him.

And then he smiles at her, all dimples and shy glances, the way he did the moment before he left her.

“All I knew was that I needed to come back here,” he continues. “To Tatooine, where it all began for me. And for my family.”

_ The Force _ , Rey thinks, but doesn’t say. No—she doesn’t think it. She knows it.  _ The Force brought you back. Then it led you here. _

“Yes,” Ben says out loud. He can hear her, then. Her eyes well up with more tears. “It was probably the Force. But...”

He reaches out his hand, tentative, towards her.

“But all that matters, I think, is that I am here.”

Rey regards him a moment. Takes in the breadth of his shoulders and the shy, hopeful smile still lingering on his lips.

She takes a deep steadying breath.

For the first time since knowing him, Rey takes the hand he offers her.

She hears the way his breath catches when she twines her fingers through his, feels the way their bond pulses and thrums all around them—and she smiles back at him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am absolutely blown away by all of your kind comments and kudos. The past few days have been a lot for me, emotionally, so haven’t been able to reply to most of them. Please know, though, that I have read and appreciated every one of them, and they have meant so much to me. <3
> 
> This morning I was gifted an absolutely gorgeous piece of art for this fic by [Audrey Estok](https://twitter.com/AudreyEstok/status/1208755765382721536). Every time I look at it I want to cry with how beautiful and perfect it is. I can't thank her enough for drawing it for me.

As soon as they enter her hut Rey immediately understands why Ben has attracted so much attention from the locals.

Simply put , h e is far too big for Tatooine . He is all broad shoulders and thick, long legs, with nearly twice the body mass of most of the people who live out here in the desert. In the desert,  people tend to be lean, their bodies spare and compact out of dire necessity. Taking up extra space is a liability in a place where sustenance and safe shelter can be scarcer than summer rain.

But then again, Ben — despite his ancestral ties to this planet — was not raised here. It only makes sense that physically, he would not have adapted.

Rey’s blood thrums in her veins as she watches him lumber from room to room in Luke’s old home. He seems to take up all the oxygen, all of the space, in the small hut, and Rey finds she can scarcely breathe as he repeatedly ducks his head at awkward angles to pass through the dwelling’s low doorways.

At length — once he has seen all there is to see — Ben turns to face her. His brow is furrowed, and his dark eyes ask a silent question.

“Yes. You can stay,” Rey answers him quickly, heart racing, before he has the chance to ask it out loud. “I mean… if you want to.”

_ I want you to stay here. With me. Please.  _

They’d held hands during most of their silent walk back from town, a distance of nearly four miles that felt even longer because of Rey’s impatience to finally be alone with him. Now that she had at last agreed to take his hand Ben seemed to be in no hurry to let hers go. But they had hardly spoken all the long walk back. Rey had been too full of joy over Ben’s unexpected appearance, and by the comforting thrum of their awakened bond — and, of course, by the mind-boggling fact that he is _ alive _ , and  _ here _ — to have any room left for words. 

Rey  _ thinks _ he wants to stay with her. Luke’s old home is nearly an hour from the marketplace; if he hadn’t wanted to stay with her why would he have come all this way? But since getting here Ben has been restless, unable to stay still. He has made no move to touch her again, and his thoughts have been walled off from her, and far too tangled for her to read.

At her spoken invitation— _ will you stay?— _ Ben swallows. Rey watches, licking her lips reflexively, as his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. 

“Rey,” he says, quietly. 

He says nothing else, and then he turns away from her, running a large hand through his dark hair. His hair is longer than it was the last time she saw him, when he’d held her in his arms back on Exogol. She likes his hair long. But then, she liked it when it was a little shorter, too, despite the fact that he was  _ Kylo Ren _ back then and she’d fought with everything she was to deny the attraction.

When he continues to say nothing, standing with his broad back to her, Rey starts to worry over what he thinks of  _ her _ hair, of  _ her  _ appearance . Does he  find her too thin after several months spent here, in the desert, living alone? She realizes, suddenly, that she wants Ben to find her attractive. Desirable. 

Right now, she wants that more than almost anything.

“Rey,” he says again, sounding reluctant. “I... can’t stay here.”

Rey’s stomach twists itself into a hard little knot. Her heart lurches.

She’d presumed too much, then.

“This was my  _ uncle’s _ house,” he explains, his voice strained. “I… can’t stay in a house that once belonged to him.” His back is still to her, and Rey forces herself to keep her eyes trained on the back of his head. She refuses to let her gaze trail down his large body, no matter how badly she wants to drink him in like a glass of water on a hot day. 

“Luke is gone,” Rey says, very quietly. “He… can’t hurt you.”

“He’s here,” Ben counters, his voice flat. “His spirit is here. You know that as well as I do.”

Rey closes her eyes, unable to deny it. After all, it’s why she came to Tatooine. The knowledge that Luke, her former mentor, would never be truly gone if she came here was as much a draw to this place as the sweet solitude she knew the desert would provide her. 

“Where have you been living since you came here?” Rey asks, quietly. Perhaps, if he isn’t living too far away, then they could still—

At her question, Ben’s whole body seems to tense up. He shifts his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, and then pivots slowly until he’s facing her.

Is he...  _ blushing _ ?

“I’m… staying in a sort of… cave,” he says, haltingly. “About ten miles west of here.”

Rey’s mouth drops open. “A  _ cave _ ?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously?”

He looks away, flush deepening. “Yes.”

Rey takes a step towards him. He doesn’t move away from her, but he doesn’t move closer, either.

“You can’t live in a cave, Ben.”

“I can,” he says, a little defiantly. His jaw is set. “I have been.”

“For how long?”

Ben runs his hand through his hair again, thinking. Rey watches the movement. She wants to run her own hands through his hair, if he’ll let her. She hopes he’ll let her. She wants to find out for herself if it’s as soft as it looks. 

“I’ve lived here—I mean, I’ve lived  _ there _ —for about two months.”

Rey is aghast. “Two  _ months _ ? Ben, you can’t go back to living in a cave.”

He stares at her. “Why not?” 

Rey wracks her brain for a reasonable answer to that.

“It’s a nice cave,” he adds. “It’s roomy. I mean—as caves go.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Do you even have a front  _ door _ ?” 

Ben’s lips twitch, suggesting he’s fighting a smile. “Not in the strictest sense of the word, no.”

Rey folds her arms across her chest. “Well, you can’t live somewhere without a door that locks on Tatooine,” she says with finality.

“No?”

“No,” she says. “There are…” She pauses, thinking. “There are bandits.” 

His lips twitch again. “People in town seem to want to steer clear of me. I’ve seen some wild animals, but no bandits have thought to bother me.”

“Do you even have a lightsaber with you?” she demands. “Weapons?”

“I have my fists,” he says. “My rapier wit.” But he’s grinning openly at her now, and her heart flutters. Will she ever get used to Ben Solo, smiling?

“Ben.”

“I have the Force, too.”

Rey stomps her foot. “ _ Ben.” _

At that, his smile falters. He sighs, and closes his eyes. “I want to stay with you, Rey. So much. But…” 

He trails off. When he doesn’t say anything more, Rey crosses to where he stands. She rests a gentle hand on either side of his face, a little thrill trickling down her spine when she feels him shiver beneath her palms.

“It’ll be alright if you stay here,” she murmurs, very quiet. “I’ll keep you safe.”

He opens his eyes, the look he’s giving her full of so much quiet anguish and longing it makes her heart ache. She steps even closer to him, until her lips are just a hair's breadth away from his own.

“I’m not sure you can.”

“I can,” she says. “I promise.”

He pulls back a little, regarding her. “Is there even room for me here?” 

She nods.

“There’s a second bedroom in the back,” she says. Ben stiffens a little, for reasons Rey doesn’t understand. “I think it’s where Luke’s aunt and uncle must have slept.”

Ben blinks at her silently for a few moments, the look on his face unreadable. 

“A… second room in the back,” he repeats, slowly.

She nods. “Yes. The bed is quite large. It looks comfortable.”

“All right,” he says. “But I don’t know if I can stay here long, Rey.” He shuts his eyes. “This house—this planet—they’re both full of ghosts.”

“I know,” she whispers, her voice full of sympathy.

On impulse, her heart hammering in her ears, Rey tilts her chin, lifts up on her toes, and gently, tentatively, presses her lips to his. His entire body relaxes at once. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her flush against the front of his body in a way that punches the air from her lungs and sets fire to her blood. She melts against him, and sighs as he slants his sweet, soft, pliant mouth more firmly over hers and rubs small circles at the base of her spine with his thumbs. 

This is nothing like the kiss they shared on Exogol. That kiss was full of desperation and relief… and almost excruciating physical pain. This kiss is fire, and promise, and Rey pulls him closer by the front of his robe, unwilling to ever let him go now that she’s won him back. 

“Go get your things,” she murmurs against his lips. “Take my speeder.”

A quiet nod. “Okay.”

“Then come back here right away. I’ll have your room ready for you when you return.” He flinches a little at that, but then she presses gentle kisses to his lips, his forehead, and each of his closed eyelids, reveling in his contented sighs, and at how joyfully the Force sings again now that they are together.

“We’ll set out for a new place soon,” she promises. She leans forward, closing her eyes and resting her forehead against his. “If you want. Maybe someplace green.”

She can feel him smiling. 

“I’d like that.” He pauses. His smile grows. “Very much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: unexpected bedsharing ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has replayed their first kiss in his mind countless times since waking up, alone and afraid, on Exogol. Her lips on his felt like coming up for air, like warm sunshine after a long, cold winter. He had wanted nothing more in that moment than to keep kissing her, endlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate! And to everyone, regardless of whether or not you celebrate, I hope your December 25 was a good one. ;)
> 
> As for this chapter, I figure if I can bring Ben back to life with a little hand-waving, a second bed is easy enough to dispense with. ;)

Rey is still awake and waiting for him when Ben gets back to the hut much later that night, carrying all of his worldly possessions in a small knapsack slung over one shoulder. She’s dressed in a flowing white robe—presumably what she likes to wear to bed, though he’s only guessing at that. Their bond never connected them during her overnight hours when he was still Kylo Ren. He has never seen her sleeping.

(He will  _ not _ think of Rey’s body, rigid and unseeing in death, as he held her in his arms on Exogol. She is alive now, and so is he. He revisits that horrible scene often enough in his nightmares; he refuses to give it power over him while he is awake.)

Rey stands up from her chair when he enters the room, her robe billowing behind her. She walks over to him with a smile that nearly brings him to his knees.

“What took you so long?” She smiles, but her eyes betray her concern. 

Ben looks away and shrugs a shoulder, heat beginning to creep into his cheeks. “There were… complications.”

“Complications?”

“Mm.” He does not elaborate. She’d been right, of course, when she said he should be more concerned about Tatooine bandits—just as she’s been right about almost everything all along. But telling her about the trouble he ran into on his way back here from the cave would only worry her, and he would give everything he has left if it means she’ll never have to worry about anything again.

Besides—he won the fight against those bandits easily enough. He wonders, and not for the first time, if he should be thankful for his natural skill with a blaster that he probably inherited from his father.

Rey steps closer to him and says, “I got your room ready for you.” He tries not to let his disappointment that she apparently doesn’t want him in  _ her  _ bed show on his face. He knows that the fact that she wants to kiss him, to be with him in any capacity at all, is itself nothing short of miraculous.

He has replayed their first kiss in his mind countless times since waking up, alone and afraid, on Exogol. Her lips on his felt like coming up for air, like warm sunshine after a long, cold winter. He had wanted nothing more in that moment than to keep kissing her, endlessly. 

He wants a lot more than that now. The darkness in him had mostly kept his baser physical urges at bay. But Kylo Ren is dead; only Ben Solo remains. 

There is nothing left in him that tempers his desire for Rey now.

“I’d wanted to stay up and talk with you some more,” Rey says, a little shy. “To spend time with you.”

Ben moves closer to her, brow furrowed in concern. “But now you don’t?”

Rey looks a little sheepish—and then yawns, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

Ah.

“I’m exhausted,” she explains. “I get up at dawn every morning. And seeing you again…”

He nods, understanding. “It’s been a very long day.”

“It has.”

Ben looks away, towards the horizon where the twin, burning suns disappeared below the horizon several hours ago.

“Can I… show you to your bedroom?” Her voice has gone quiet, soft. He turns his gaze back to her; but she is examining her fingernails.

He nods, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. “Sure.”

His traitorous eyes trail down Rey’s body as she leads him to the room in the back of the hut that once belonged to Luke’s own aunt and uncle. His hands itch to roam over her slender curves, his lips to map out the constellation of freckles that dot her shoulder blades, as she moves through the house with the effortless grace that never fails to leave him breathless.

But he keeps his hands balled up into tight fists at his sides to resist the urge to touch her. When they arrive at the room that is to be his for however long they are here on Tatooine his cock is already halfway to being hard and tenting the front of his robes—a state of being that was once a rarity for him, but is now a daily occurence. Sometimes more than daily. 

He is grateful Rey is walking in front of him and not able to see him as he reaches down and adjusts himself, awkwardly, through his pants. The gentle, fleeting pressure of his hand feels good—but he won’t let himself think about that right now.

“I’ll be in the next room if you need anything,” she says, looking up at him through her lashes.  _ You,  _ he wants to shout.  _ I need you.  _ He wants to pull her robes apart with his hands and slide the fabric off her shoulders until it puddles at her feet. He wants to see her body—all of it—with his own eyes, and memorize each one of her curves and contours with his fingertips. 

But just as he’s about to gather his courage and tell her all this, she is already turning to leave, showing no sign that she feels these same carnal urges that threaten to pull him under.

He swallows, and nods. He’ll take likely take himself in hand tonight—the way he’s done almost every night since Exogol—pawing frantically at his cock while thinking of her until he emits his pleasure all over his hand. It’s a noisy business, usually; he’ll have to be sure to muffle his groans into a pillow so Rey does not hear.

Before she leaves, she hesitates at the door.

“Is there... anything else you need right now?” she asks, eyes on the doorframe.

Ben blinks at her, his heart racing with hope in his chest. 

“Need?”

“Yes.“ Rey pauses, bites her lip. “I think…”

Her cheeks are flushed. She’s still biting her lip. 

“Rey.” Ben’s heart is hammering in his chest now. He crosses over to where she’s standing. “What is it?”

She looks up at him and slowly, slowly, cups his face in both hands. His breath catches. He doesn’t dare move a muscle for fear of shattering this moment.

“Goodnight, Ben,” she whispers, before dropping her hands and nearly running out of the room. 

Ben squeezes his eyes shut tight and presses his fists into them, willing himself to calm down.

* * *

The sound of Ben screaming from the next room shatters the night’s quiet and instantly pulls Rey from her fitful sleep.

She sits bolt upright in bed and fumbles in the dark for her robe. Sometimes she dreams Ben is screaming, either from pain or out of fear, or both—but the sound of his  _ actual _ screams is a visceral thing, something that reaches inside her and squeezes her heart like a vise. They are connected, him and her—and while she still does not fully understand this connection what she  _ does  _ know is that right now, Ben is terrified. His fear courses through her own bloodstream, making her eyes water and her heart pound, as though it were her own. 

And perhaps it is. Perhaps that’s what their bond means, now that he has returned to the light. 

Rey is out of her bedroom and racing to his on pure instinct, before she even realizes what she’s doing.

She finds him thrashing in his bedsheets, screaming and crying like a wounded animal in a cage. She hesitates at the door for only a moment—but then he cries out her name, the single syllable broken, wrenched from his throat. The sound of it pulls her to him like a moth to a flame. 

“Rey!” he screams. She can feel his pain, his suffering, reverberating through her body and all the way down to her toes. The simple ceramic vase on the table next to his bed crashes to the floor, shattering into a thousand broken pieces; Rey cannot tell if he knocked it over with his flailing fists or with the Force. “ _ Rey!” _

A moment later she clambers onto the bed and throws herself on top of him. She wraps her arms around his broad shoulders, willing his body to calm, his mind to gentle, with reassuring words and touches through their bond.

The effect her presence has on him is instantaneous. The moment she begins soothing him, caressing him, he starts to calm. His heart still gallops inside his ribcage, a rapid beat she can feel as much as hear beneath her ear—but the longer she is with him, and the longer she reassures him of her presence with her caresses and the Force, the more it eventually slows.

“Stay with me,” he mumbles against her cheek. He’s awake now, but just barely. He wraps his arms and his legs around her body and pulls her into him, holding her so tight it squeezes the air from her lungs. Rey is not small, but Ben’s frame dwarfs hers. It is a heady thing, to be so completely enveloped by him like this. She wants to drown in this feeling of closeness. She never wants to leave this room, or his strong arms. “When you aren’t with me, the nightmares...”

Rey closes her eyes shut tight, hesitating.

Rey doesn’t know what to do in a bed with a man. It’s why she insisted they sleep separately in the first place; because while she desires Ben, she has no idea what comes next, after kissing. He was the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Surely he had his pick of lovers. If he finds out that she knows nothing about… about  _ anything _ , what if he doesn’t want her any longer, bond be damned?

“ _ Please _ , Rey.” Her name sounds like begging, and it breaks something inside of her. She cannot deny him comfort. When he suffers, so does she.

And they have both suffered far too much.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promises fervently, despite her nerves. She can feel his body relax against hers at her words. She pulls their blankets down and scoots beneath them, molding herself around him. He is almost feverishly hot, and smells intoxicatingly like salt, and sweat... and  _ Ben.  _ Rey swallows against the hot stab of desire that goes through her and burrows closer into his side. “I’m right here.”

He pulls her even closer and buries his nose in her hair.

“Every night, I dream they take you from me,” he whimpers. “Every night, Rey.”

Her eyes begin welling with tears at his words, but she presses gentle, reassuring kisses to his cheeks. His neck. 

He hums his comfort and his pleasure.

“I’m right here,” she says again, through the tears that threaten to spill down her cheeks. “I’m right here.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey wakes up shortly before dawn to the feel of warm, lingering kisses being pressed to the back of her neck.
> 
> Her eyes flutter closed again as she shivers, letting the peace and the joy she feels emanating from Ben through their bond wash over her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again, so much, for your kudos, bookmarks, and comments. I've been traveling more or less nonstop since seeing TRoS and have been terrible at replying to comments. Please know, though, that I've read every single one and each of them means so much to me.
> 
> In other news.... I had to add a chapter. It turns out sex with two virgins can sometimes be a little awkward. Please forgive me?

Rey wakes up shortly before dawn to the feel of warm, lingering kisses being pressed to the back of her neck.

Her eyes flutter closed again as she shivers, letting the peace and the joy she feels emanating from Ben through their bond wash over her.

“Good morning.” Ben’s voice is gravelly with sleep. He hums contentedly against her skin, lips lingering a moment just beneath her ear. Rey wishes they could freeze this moment. She would gladly live in it forever. “How did you sleep?”

He already knows the answer to that, of course—just as she knows Ben slept deeply and well once she climbed into his bed. But he must want, or need, her to tell him anyway. He must want to hear her say it out loud.

Rey rolls over in his arms so she can face him.

His eyes are still closed. But the happiness she can feel radiating from him is a tangible thing, something Rey thinks she could almost reach out and grasp in her hands if she weren’t too sleepy and content right now to move.

“I slept wonderfully,” she says. And then, she adds: “Best sleep I’ve had in ages.”

“Good.” He grins shyly at her.

“Did you have more nightmares?” 

He shakes his head. “No.”

She presses a kiss to each of his closed eyelids. “Good.”

They lie there like that for what feels like a very long time, tangled up in the bedsheets and each other’s arms. Soon, Rey will need to get up and start the chores that have marked her days since she arrived on Tatooine. She’ll ask Ben to help her with them—though she supposes he might have his own obligations here on Tatooine that don’t involve her. Either way, she doesn’t want to leave their private little cocoon just yet. After all they have lost, they deserve this time right now—simply  _ existing _ together, and listening to one another breathe.

At length, Ben’s eyes flutter open. His eyes are clear and bright, despite the early hour, in a way they never were when he was Kylo Ren. He gazes back into her eyes at first, but then his gaze drifts downwards towards her chest.

His eyes bulge slightly, and he gapes at her—like he cannot believe what he is seeing. 

Rey can feel the heat of his blush—as well as his sudden, intense spike of arousal through their bond—as acutely as if they were her own. He blinks at her chest mutely, seemingly unable to tear his eyes away.

“Ben?”

For a long moment he says nothing—just continues to look at her with a burning reverence that makes her heart flutter. 

He licks his lips, then asks, his voice hoarse: “Can I…?”

His eyes meet hers, hopeful, seeking permission.

Rey is confused. She doesn’t understand what he’s asking permission for. “Can you… what, exactly?”

His eyes dart back down to her chest again and this time, Rey’s eyes follow the direction of his gaze.

When she sees what he’s been looking at she chokes on her breath.

Her robes must have fallen open at some point in the night. She doesn’t wear a breast band to bed, and her small breasts are currently bared to the cool morning air—and Ben’s eyes. Her small, dusky pink nipples are already hardening into stiff peaks, as though Ben’s attention were enough, all on its own, to cause this physical reaction in her.

Rey swallows thickly. Ben’s desire for her only magnifies the latent yearning that’s been simmering inside her from the moment she first saw him, all those months ago. This wanting, this  _ desiring _ , has only grown since then, despite all of her best efforts to deny it.

But there will be no more denying it. She knows that now, as plainly as she knows the suns on Tatooine rise up in the east. The look he is giving her threatens to stoke the fire that’s been simmering inside her all this time into a blaze.

“You can touch me,” she murmurs. He never finished his question, but she knows that’s what he’s asking her all the same. “I… want you to touch me.”

It’s the only permission he needs. With a quiet whimper Ben slides his hands up her stomach until they bump up against the underside of her bare breasts. After only a moment’s hesitation Ben slides them up further, until his large palms completely envelop her. 

She gasps at the sensation. Or maybe they both do. Her flesh is cool, and his hands are hot; the sharp contrast sends delicious, unfamiliar shivers shooting down her spine. She feels the coil of desire winding tighter and tighter in the pit of her belly, and her thighs clench involuntarily when he begins to move his hands a little, tentatively stroking her taut nipples with the pads of his thumbs.

Her nerves and her uncertainty are at war with her desire. What if she isn’t any good at this? What if she disappoints him? But in the end, her desire for Ben wins out, and blots out everything else. Rey reaches up and covers his hands with her own, squeezing them a little to encourage him to keep going. His hands are so much bigger than hers, which is something she has always known; but something about the way his hands completely envelop her small breasts  _ does _ something to her. It makes her feel small, almost submissive, in a way that is intoxicating—and entirely new.

And then he shifts his hips towards her—just a little; just so that the lower halves of their bodies are pressed more closely together. And Rey’s blood turns to fire in her veins.

“Ben,” she breathes, as his erection—hot, and hard, and absolutely  _ massive _ —presses urgently against her belly. 

Rey is not a complete stranger to the male anatomy, despite her near complete ignorance of most sexual matters. But nothing in any of her time spent on Jakku near drunken men stumbling half-dressed out of Niima’s taverns and brothels has prepared her for  _ this _ .

Rey thought she had had some idea of how large a man’s erect penis would be. But Ben… Ben blows all her earlier ideas of size out of the water. He must be eight inches long, at least. And as for his girth—she closes her eyes, wondering if she’ll even be able to wrap her hand all the way around him. The thought of something that big inside of her fills her with equal parts fear—and delicious anticipation. 

As though able to read her thoughts (which, Rey realizes a bit too late, he probably can), Ben shifts, a little awkwardly, on the bed beside her. He closes his eyes, his breathing going a little ragged. 

“We... don’t have to do anything,” he tells her. But he clutches at her again, more firmly this time. He pulls her even closer and his erection actually  _ throbs  _ against her stomach. Rey can start to feel herself growing wetter between her legs in response to it, and she rubs her thighs together a little for some much-needed friction before she even realizes she’s doing it.

“Ben…”

“You hadn’t even wanted to share a bed with me,” he continues. “And you  _ wouldn’t _ have shared a bed with me, if I hadn’t had that nightmare, and if you hadn’t—”

He’s babbling now. He’s babbling, and it’s abundantly clear that he is at least as nervous right now as she is. Maybe he doesn’t have much experience with this, either. Regardless, if they’re going to do this he’s going to have to stop talking or else she’ll lose her nerve.

Acting on pure instinct, Rey places her hands on Ben’s shoulders and pushes him until he rolls over onto his back. She follows him, rolling on top of him with her palms placed flat on his chest for balance.

She pauses a moment to take in his stunned expression, and then she kisses him, slanting her mouth over his with a ferocity and determination none of their other kisses have had. Those earlier kisses were tentative and sweet. But this kiss is needy. Reckless. She thrusts her tongue roughly between his lips as he groans helplessly beneath her, needing to feel the slide of his tongue along hers. He gasps into her mouth when she does it, and his strong arms hesitate only a moment before going around her to pull their bodies even more closely together. She deepens the kiss further, luxuriating in the slide of her lips against his and the feel of his cock nudging needfully against her belly, losing herself in the heady rush of kissing, and touching, and  _ Ben. _

“Rey,” he pants. He pulls away from the kiss minutely, shifting his head away from hers on the pillow. And then he flips them both in one fluid motion, so that Rey is lying flat on her back and Ben is hovering over her. “I want…”

He doesn’t finish telling her what he wants. A moment later his hands and his mouth are  _ everywhere _ —sucking needfully at her breasts, fumbling with the ties of her robe—all the while murmuring filthy profanities under his breath and pretty, unspoken promises to her through their bond.

“I want  _ you _ ,” he murmurs, his lips on her navel. “I want to touch and taste and _ fuck _ every single part of you, Rey.” He presses the words reverently to the skin of her belly, and she  _ whines _ at the filthy, beautiful promises for the near future they suggest. He’s sliding down her body now, pushing her robes apart so that the rest of her body is bare. The cool air of the room hits her, makes her tense up—but a half-second later Ben’s body is covering her again and everything is so  _ warm _ . Every nerve in Rey’s body is alight with desire, each cell and every molecule attuned to his touch and his breath. She wants him to touch her, to run his tongue over every inch of her—and the longer he teases her, pressing kisses and gentle words to her stomach, to her upper thighs, the more a torment the waiting becomes.

On impulse, Rey shifts her leg slightly so that it’s neatly slotted between both of his. His cock now presses up against her thigh—even bigger and harder than it was before—and she rubs against it on instinct, desperate for the waiting to end and everything else to finally begin.

The effect this has on Ben is immediate and unexpected. He  _ growls _ as she presses her leg up into him, and he grabs her by the waist, his fingertips digging so hard into the soft flesh there he’s sure to leave bruises later.

“I want you to taste me, Ben,” she tells him. All her reluctance and shyness is gone now. The look he is giving her is positively  _ feral _ with need, his eyes half-lidded and dark. His mouth hangs slightly open and his lips look even plumper than usual—almost bee-stung—from their kissing. She wants that plush mouth of his pressed up against her cunt, and his soft, gorgeous lips sucking on the sensitive spot between her thighs that makes her fall apart when she rubs at it with her own fingers. 

“You do?” he rasps. His hands on her waist are trembling.

She nods. “I want you to kiss me  _ there _ .”

She snakes her hand down between her legs to show him, and she whimpers when her fingers reach the source of her pleasure. She is absolutely soaking between her legs now, and she touches the soft little bundle of nerves that makes her toes curl and her vision go white, Ben—watching her with rapt attention—groans, and then begins to rock against the leg pressed up against his cock. Gently, at first; but as the pleasure inside her starts to mount, and the coil of desire winds tighter, his movements soon turn into thrusts, becoming faster, harder, more aggressive. Soon enough he is positively rutting against her leg, groaning her name and gritting out an absolutely filthy litany of curses, as her fingers speed up, rubbing at herself frantically as her release looms closer.

“ _ Rey,” _ he chokes out—and then he is coming,  _ hard _ , against her thigh, and she can  _ sense  _ it as he comes, can feel the way his pleasure tears through him and his mind washes blank as his body goes rigid above hers. His pleasure reverberates through their bond and magnifies hers—and then without warning it shoves her forcefully off of the knife’s edge she’s been balancing on. Her mouth falls open in a silent shout as her fingers flutter and her cunt spasms.

It feels like it goes on for a very long time, the pleasure, and is only sharpened with every breath he takes and every whimper that leaves her lips. But then, finally, it is over, and they lie together on the bed in a boneless heap, their chests heaving as their heartbeats start to regulate and their sweat begins to cool on their skin.

Just as Rey is about to drift off to sleep, lulled into it by the peace and the bone-deep satisfaction that now thrums through her bloodstream, she hears Ben groan beside her, and then say, in a very small voice: “That was… not how I’d imagined that would go.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They quickly fall into an easy routine with one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I can't thank you enough for all your lovely support for this story. I'm finally back in town and am slowly responding to the comments you've left for me. Thank you so much for every one.
> 
> Also-- I can't remember if TRoS addresses what happens to the Millennium Falcon in the end. For purposes of this chapter let's just pretend Rey brought it with her to Tatooine.

They quickly fall into an easy routine with one another.

Staying at the old Lars homestead is less painful than Ben had expected. The specters of his uncle and his grandfather don’t, in fact, lurk around every corner, waiting for him, like he thought they would when Rey first brought him here.

Of course, he’s certain the unexpected peace he has found here is due to the fact that he falls asleep with Rey in his arms every night and wakes up next to her every morning. Simply being  _ near  _ Rey while he sleeps seems to be nearly enough, all on its own, to ward off most of his demons and nightmares.

Rey is, it would seem, the only protection from the dark he has ever needed.

He still wants to leave this place with her. Sooner, rather than later. But the rituals Rey set in place for herself when she got here—checking the moisture vaporators first thing in the morning and then again at noon; taking what little water the machines reclaim over to the marketplace every evening for however many credits they are able to get for it—are comfortable and easy enough for Ben to slip into. Like an old, worn pair of shoes you know will fit perfectly before you even try them on.

Ben can’t help but wonder how much of the desert is in his blood, the way the Force and the dark side have always been. 

But the idea that Tatooine is in any way his destiny unsettles him. He decides not to dwell on it. If he has his way they’ll be leaving, and soon.

He wants to bring her someplace green. She deserves to live somewhere beautiful.

* * *

“Do you really not remember what happened on Exogol?”

They are sitting side by side in the Falcon, running diagnostics, when she asks him. Rey is in the pilot’s seat and Ben, sitting in the seat where Uncle Chewie used to sit when he flew with his father, is caught so off guard by the question that at first he thinks he must have heard her wrong.

Not wanting to test fate, they’ve hardly spoken about what happened to him since they found each other at the marketplace. To his relief, she has seemed to take his half-truth—that he wasn’t certain how he came back, though he suspected the Force had something to do with it—at face value.

But maybe he was wrong about that, and Rey’s just been waiting for the right moment.

Ben sets down the rag he’s been holding and clears his throat.

“I’m sorry. I’m.. not sure I heard you.”

She turns to face him fully. “You heard me,” she says. Her eyes narrow, growing suspicious. “It’s just... I mean, I saw you  _ disappear _ .” She shakes her head. “Do you really not remember what happened after that?”

Ben closes his eyes and lets out a long, low breath. He runs a hand through his hair, trying to arrange his scattered thoughts and memories into a kind of sense that she will understand. 

“I... remember a little,” he admits, quiet. He isn’t sure he can do this. But for Rey, he will try. “Images, mostly. And... voices.”

Rey climbs out of the pilot seat and sits down on Ben’s lap. She leans against him, resting her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Go on,” she prompts. 

“Rey…”

She presses a kiss to his neck, so feather-light and soft he can’t quite stifle the quiet groan that escapes him.

“I want you to tell me,” she murmurs. “I want to know what happened to you.”

It’s a fair enough request. If the situation were reversed he knows he would have the exact same questions for her.

He sighs.

“After I… became one with the Force, I heard…” He pauses, knowing how crazy and strange this next part is going to sound. “I heard my family. My  _ entire _ family. And I know that sounds… well. Kind of insane. Because I  _ know _ they’re all gone now. Some of them for generations. And some of them, like my dad and my grandmother, weren’t even Force sensitive. But…”

He trails off, and then cranes his neck a little so he can see Rey’s face. She’s gazing up at him, the look in her eyes so open and trusting it breaks his heart.

“But what?” she asks him.

He sighs. “They told me I had to come back. They said I wasn’t…  _ finished _ yet.” He closes his eyes, willing the tears that he can feel starting to prick the corners of his eyes not to fall. “They just kept saying that, over and over again. They… they told me I had to get up. That I had to rise.”

Rey nods against his chest, as though all of this makes sense to her somehow. Though he doesn’t see how it possibly could. 

“Then what happened?”

“The next thing I remember, I woke up alone. Right where we were when you… when you died. And then where I brought you back. And you kissed me.” His cheeks go hot as he remembers another detail. “Also, when I woke up, I guess I was… um.” He swallows. “Naked.”

At the admission, everything about the energy in the small cockpit changes. Rey laughs—a brilliant, unexpected sound. It cuts through the tension that had been building between them like a knife. She relaxes against his chest, sighing. 

After another long moment, she says, very quietly, “I would have liked to have seen that.”

Amusement—and something else; something richer, more intoxicating—is bubbling up inside her, just beneath the surface.

Ben’s flush deepens. “I’m sure I wasn’t much to see.”

“I’m sure you  _ were _ .”

At that, he sits up a little straighter in the co-pilot seat.

“You’ve seen me naked since then, Rey.”

She shakes her head.

“No,” she says, very quietly. She isn’t laughing anymore. Her smile slips. “I haven’t.” 

Ben thinks back on the past several weeks. They’ve slept together every night since their single, failed attempt at sleeping apart, but they haven’t tried to reenact their one disastrous attempt at sex. There have been plenty of hugs, and hours of cuddling every single day—but neither of them have tried to start anything more intimate with each other than kissing.

Maybe Rey found their last attempt at intimacy too embarrassing to try again. Or—and he realizes, suddenly, that this is a possibility—maybe he’s just been projecting, and the embarrassment has been his alone. 

Either way, surely at some point over the past few weeks she’s been in the room while he’s undressed for bed. Right?

“Are you… sure you haven’t seen me naked?” He can feel his flush deepen and Rey’s amusement growing.

Unexpectedly, Rey turns in the seat so that she’s straddling him, one leg slung over each of his hips. His body’s reaction to their new positioning is immediate and embarrassingly predictable. Already, his cock is starting to grow stiff beneath her, just from the angle of her hips and the closer proximity of her body.

“I’m  _ sure _ I haven’t seen you naked.” Her voice has taken on a languid quality, and her eyes quickly leave his face and trail down to his chest. She leans forward until there’s only a few inches of space between them. “I think I’d remember it if I had.”

Ben has to admit that’s a valid point.

“And yet—you’ve seen  _ me _ naked,” she continues. Which is also a valid point. Ben closes his eyes, reliving for the hundredth time the memory of Rey splayed out on the bed, her robes shoved to either side and her beautiful body laid bare before him.

“True,” he manages.

“Do you think that’s fair?”

He frowns. “Do I think what’s fair?”

“That you’ve seen me without my clothes but I still haven’t seen you without yours.” She’s trying to sound indignant, he knows that—but she can’t quite keep the amusement out of her voice, and Ben isn’t fooled.

He  _ is _ , however, growing harder inside his trousers by the second. If this conversation continues along these lines for much longer—if Rey continues to sit the way she’s sitting, straddling him, her body pressed so deliciously against his...

“Will you show me what you look like underneath your clothes, Ben?” Rey pulls back a little so she can see his face. The look in her eyes leaves no question what she wants. 

And, gods—he wants it too. 

As if to give emphasis to her words, she adjusts her position on his lap, gyrating her hips more than strictly necessary in the process. Her round, pert bottom rubs up deliciously against his stiffening cock as she does it. His head jerks backwards against the co-pilot seat reflexively, and he gasps.

“You... want to see me naked?” he breathes out in a rush. He tells himself to calm down, to get a grip on himself. But it’s no use. Rey is already fumbling with the front tie of his tunic and all he can think about right now is how good her hands will feel on his bare chest—and how they’ll feel even better, just a bit lower.

“I do want to see you naked,” she confirms. “And... I want other things, too.” She gets the tie undone with remarkably steady hands—and then she stops, and looks him right in the eye.

She’s waiting for confirmation from him that this is all right, he realizes. 

“Yes,” he says quickly. He nods his head, and adds: “ _ Please _ .” He will do everything in his power to keep himself in check this time. He will make this good for her. For both of them. 

She gives him a smile that’s as mischievous as it is bright. 

And then she gets back to work, sliding off his lap and onto the floor. She kneels in front of him as she undoes the laces of his trousers, and he lifts his hips a little to help her as she pulls them, with a generous, impatient tug, over his hips and down his legs.

Almost before he can register it’s happened, he is completely naked. In front of Rey.

Rey, who is still kneeling on the floor at his feet, her eyes trained on his stiff and straining cock. Never in a million years would he have dreamed such a sight was even  _ possible _ . It’s like a vision from one of his filthiest fantasies. It takes all of his restraint not to break down and beg her to touch him.

But somehow he manages to resist. She says nothing as she stares at his cock, taking him in from root to tip.

She stares at him for so long a worry line starts forms between her brows.

“Rey?” He can hear the note of concern in his voice. “Is everything ok?” He looks down at himself, wondering if he doesn’t measure up to her expectations. He’s seen holovid pornography a few times, and has seen his own penis many thousands of times. Until now he thought he had nothing to worry about in the size department. 

But was he wrong about that? Does she find him lacking in some significant way?

He looks up at her again, and his mouth drops open in surprise when he sees she’s already halfway to completely undressed. Her small breasts bounce a little in her hurry to rid herself of her tunic and leggings and he stares at her, at them, utterly mesmerized. His cock is already so hard it’s beginning to leak a little from the tip, and he grasps himself in his fist without thinking, stroking gently and spreading the clear, slick fluid along his shaft.

Are they going to talk about what’s about to happen? Ben thinks maybe they should talk, or something… but then Rey is climbing up on his lap again—naked, just like him—and his mind snaps blank.

“Is this ok?” She sounds unsure as she slides closer to him. 

“Rey,” he breathes, not understanding how she could possibly not know how much he wants this. “I’ve wanted to do this from the first moment I saw you.”

She  _ whimpers _ at that, and the sound does something to him, propels him forward in the chair until their bare chests are pressed together. The feel of her—her hardened nipples against his skin; her hands scrabbling for purchase on his bare thighs—is  _ indescribable.  _ Like everything he has ever dreamed of, and everything he never knew he wanted. 

Rey tilts her chin and kisses him, sighing against his lips as she takes his hands and covers her breasts with them. She likes it when he touches her there—the sounds she made the one time they did this will be burned forever into his memory—so he does it again, a little gentler this time, rubbing her nipples with the pads of his thumbs until she is whimpering and writhing on his lap. He can already feel the dampness growing between her thighs, and can sense how badly she wants him inside her through their bond. It inflames every single one of his senses and makes Rey, and his desire for her, all he can feel or see.

When she slips her hand between them and grasps him firmly in her palm, he nearly blacks out from the exquisite pleasure of it.

“Rey,” he grits out. She is holding herself up above him now, hands gripping his shoulders for balance, and she bites her lip as she slowly, _slowly,_ eases him inside of her body. _Gods,_ she is so tight and wet and small and _perfect._ She was absolutely _made_ for him, and he will never be convinced of anything else. She has to pull up a little after every inch she manages to take inside, but she doesn’t give up, needing to rest only a moment before sinking back down onto him again with renewed purpose. 

By the time he is fully sheathed inside her they are both breathing hard, their chests heaving as they gaze at one another. He can  _ feel _ every single one of her panting exhalations as vibrations on his cock and in the Force. 

She is ethereal. She is  _ perfect.  _ No matter what his intentions might have been earlier, Ben knows this won’t last long.

“I’m going to move now,” she pants. “ _ Kriff _ , you’re big.”

Ben tries to tell her to do it _ — _ but is so ensnared by the pleasure of this moment that he isn’t capable of actual speech.

He does manage a low, guttural noise that she takes as consent, and she begins to move over him in fits and starts. All of Ben’s instincts are  _ screaming _ at him to grab her by the hips and fuck up into her as hard and as fast as he can _ — _ but he resists, somehow, fingers digging into her waist, because he knows it will hurt her if he doesn’t hold back. Even now, with Rey taking complete control of their pace, he can feel little tremors inside her suggesting this is a little painful for her, despite the intoxicating pleasure shimmering through both of them. He tries to focus on Rey _ — _ on how she’s feeling, on making her feel  _ good _ as she fucks him by rubbing at her little bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs _ — _ because if he doesn’t focus all his attention on Rey he will be able to think of nothing but the aching throb in his balls and his desperate need to come inside her as quickly as possible.

And then she does… something, with her hips, which changes the angle of their joining. It somehow lets her take him deeper, opens up a little more space inside her narrow body. Her movements start to speed up, and he instinctively thrusts up to meet her, the head of his cock rubbing up against a part of her that makes her moan and cry out against him _ — _

When he comes apart a moment later, clutching her body to him like a lifeline, it feels like the Force cries out in pleasure, too.

* * *

“I wish I’d been there.”

“Hm?” They’re lying on the bed in the back of the Falcon, wrapped up in blankets and each other and drowsy with their shared pleasure. Ben had been on the verge of dozing off, but the quiet seriousness of her tone wakes him. “You wish you’d been where?”

Rey lifts herself up on one elbow and peers down at him. Her hair falls down around her face like a curtain, tickling his nose.

“I wish I’d been there when you woke up on Exogol.” She averts her eyes, and pretends to study a mole he has on his right shoulder. “I hate that you came back and were all alone.”

Tears are starting to well up in her eyes, and…

No.

No. This won’t do.

“Rey,” he says. He pushes up into a sitting position in the bed and gathers her into his arms. “You had no way to know I was coming back.”

“Yes, but _ —” _

“You’re here now,” he cuts in, not wanting her to feel guilt about this for another second. “With me. And I’m here with you. Against  _ all _ odds. That’s the only thing that matters to me now.”

He gathers her up into his arms, and she goes willingly, burying her face in his shoulder. He hears her sniffle, but feels no wetness from falling tears on his shoulder.

“We’re together,” she repeats. 

“Yes,” he agrees. “Nothing will ever come between us again.”

And he’s right.


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Images on holovids are one thing; the reality of Naboo is quite another. Nothing could have prepared Rey for these green mountain canyons, or for the beautiful, crystal blue lakes nestled between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue is probably the softest thing I've ever written, in case anyone is concerned about such things.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been reading along. I hope you've enjoyed this story, and that it's helped make saying goodbye a little easier. I know that writing it has helped me. <3

Ben is dozing beside her in the co-pilot’s seat when the Falcon breaks through the atmosphere and Rey sees the surface of Naboo for the first time.

The weather on Naboo is good this time of year _ — _ just as their research told them it would be—and landing the Falcon proves easy. All the same, the closer Rey gets to landing the ship, the harder it gets for her to breathe. 

Weeks ago, Ben showed her pictures of his grandmother’s ancestral home on a grainy old holovid he’d somehow found in Mos Eisley. Rey thought Naboo looked beautiful in the images; it hadn’t taken much convincing for her to agree to come here with him for their first trip together away from Tatooine.

But images on holovids are one thing; the _ reality _ of Naboo is quite another. Nothing could have prepared Rey for these green mountain canyons, or for the beautiful, crystal blue lakes nestled between them. 

Once, a lifetime ago, in a very different place, she told Ben’s father that she didn’t realize that there was that much green in the entire galaxy. She’s reminded irresistibly of that comment now, as Ben sleeps beside her in the very same chair she’d been in that day. 

How little she had known then. And how irreversibly her life has changed since.

Rey adjusts the Falcon’s navi-computer and flies them towards the spaceport closest to Varykino. Rey had been surprised when Ben suggested they visit the estate, given his reluctance to go anywhere his ghosts might find him. But Ben had only kissed her when she raised that concern, and said he didn’t think anything could hurt him there.

Rey doesn’t know how he can know that. But Ben has been so happy ever since she agreed to come here with him. She’s decided to just drop it and leave well enough alone.

* * *

“This place is…” 

Ben trails off without finishing his sentence. But Rey knows what he’s thinking.

“Enormous?” 

“Yeah.”

“Unbelievable?”

He chuckles. “That too.”

The estate that once belonged to his grandmother’s family is in surprisingly good condition, given how long it’s been since anyone has lived here. The rooms are huge and open and airy _ — _ albeit a bit dusty _ — _ and are without question the most ornately decorated rooms Rey has ever seen. The furniture is in excellent shape given its age, although the dust is so thick in places that her fingers come away chalky white after running them over a straight-backed wooden chair.

It occurs to her, suddenly, that this could be their new home _ — _ if they want it to be. Her heartbeat speeds up a little as she watches Ben wander from room to room, his lips pressed tightly together in a thin line as he takes it all in _.  _ His eyes rove over everything _ — _ from the magnificent tapestries on the walls, to the thick, intricately detailed carpeting covering the floors. 

This place is  _ beautiful. _ A proper home, abandoned. Shrouded in years, and secrets, and dust.

“Did you really never come here as a child, Ben?” She knows he didn’t; he’s told her that those holovids were the first time he’d ever laid eyes on this place, too. But Rey still finds it hard to believe that a family could  _ own _ a place like this... and never visit it.

“No,” Ben says, shaking his head. “Never. When my mother learned who her biological parents were she contacted the consulate here. And they told her about Varykino. But...” 

He’s speaking so quietly _ — _ like they’re standing in the middle of a mausoleum, rather than in a beautiful old estate. And then she realizes, feeling a bit stupid, that in many ways a mausoleum is exactly what this place is.

Rey goes over to him and puts her hand on his shoulder. “But your mother never took you here?”

He shakes his head again. “When I was young, she never felt like she could take enough time away to bring me here. By the time I was older...”

He trails off, not finishing his sentence. But he doesn’t need to. Rey knows how the rest of that story goes.

She hums sympathetically and then stands on her tiptoes so she can kiss him properly. Ben’s eyes flutter closed when she presses her lips to his, and although he kisses her back with all the fervor she’s come to expect from him these past few months he can’t quite keep the note of uneasiness out of his voice when he sighs. 

Rey pulls back so she can look at him.

“What is it?” 

“Nothing.”

He’s lying, of course. They have promised never to read each other’s thoughts without express permission but she can  _ feel  _ his anxiety pouring off him in waves. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him closer. He goes willingly, sighing again as he buries his face in her neck.

“Tell me. What’s wrong?”

“My… grandparents,” he explains, his voice just above a whisper. “They were happy here. For a little while, anyway.” He swallows. “They were in love.”

That surprises her. She didn’t think Ben knew much about his grandparents beyond the things  _ everybody _ knows about his grandparents. She certainly didn’t think he’d known these sorts of intimate details about their relationship.

Rey makes a concerted effort to gentle her voice before asking, “How do you know that, Ben?”

“I don’t know how I know.” He shakes his head, clearly agitated now. “I just do. Something about being here in this place, maybe. All I know, Rey, is that I  _ know _ it _ — _ the way I know I love you.” 

His words, the strength of feeling behind them, wash over her like warm summer rain, and Rey closes her eyes, luxuriating in the endearment.

“I love you too,” she tells him.

“I know.”

“Then why are you unhappy?” She rests her cheek on his broad chest and listens to the steady, rapid beat of his heart beneath her ear.

“I’m not unhappy.”

“Yes, you are.” She reaches up and begins idly stroking the hair at his nape. It’s getting a bit too long; she’ll have to remember to cut it soon. He shudders against her a little as her fingers soothe him. 

“I’m… a  _ little _ nervous,” he eventually concedes. And then he tightens his hold on Rey so much it borders on painful.

“Ben,” she says, alarmed. She steps away from him again so she can look at him properly. The intensity of the look he’s giving her nearly steals the breath from her body. “What… what  _ is _ it?”

He shakes his head. “He loved her, Rey. And they were happy. Here, at Varykino _ — _ in spite of all the forces conspiring against them.” And now his voice is shaking with the strength of all the emotions he is feeling _.  _ So much love, and passion; fear, and regret infuse his words it makes her knees weak. 

“Ben _ —” _

“Let me make you happy here, Rey.” Ben’s jaw works, and he closes his eyes against the tears she suspects are beginning to well up behind his eyelids. He extends his hand out to her, meaningfully. “Please.”

She stares at his hand a long moment, blinking hard against the tears pricking the corners of her own eyes, her heart beating hard behind her ribs. She hears what Ben’s not explicitly asking her—hears everything he’s offering her just in the way he waits silently, expectantly, with his hand outstretched.

Rey has never had a home before. A family. A place—or a person—that felt permanent and indelible. Hers, for however long she might live.

But now…

“Yes,” she says, her throat closing up.

She takes his hand. 

In an instant, she sees their future spread out before them. Just the shape of it—but solid, and clear. So much laughter, and love. Pleasure… and pain. In a few years it won’t just be the two of them living here anymore. And then, an eyeblink later, she sees the two of them together, old and frail—and there is his hand, warm and steady upon her shoulder. 

She looks at him in the here and now, and can tell by the look on his face that he sees it too.

“Yes,” she says again. “Yes.”

The smile he gives her burns brighter than any sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)!  
> Or on tumblr, also at [jeenonamit](https://jeenonamit.tumblr.com/).


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